


What if tears left scars in its trail

by kittylovesbambi



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Abuse, F/M, Like too many types of abuse to list but no sexual abuse?, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, and child abuse, and physical, mainly emotional, no love here sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-07-29 04:52:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16257038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittylovesbambi/pseuds/kittylovesbambi
Summary: Yunho just wants to love and be loved, what's so wrong about that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shimruto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shimruto/gifts).



> A super late, and incompleted birthday gift to Lana, and hopefully I'll finish it soon. But I decided to post part of it first because I felt bad MIA-ing.
> 
> Warning: This fic is flippin' dark. Seriously. I don't even know what to tag it because, I feel like it has a lot of dark things. There's no rape, that's all I can say.

Yunho loves her, he really does.

She is the most beautiful person he has ever laid his eyes on. From the soft gleam of her hazel browns, to the swell of her breasts and the curves of her hips. And her skin, it is akin to porcelain, it is so clear and smooth, it is practically glowing.

Their relationship started out professional, something like a photographer and his favourite subject. It was just snapshots of her back, her silhouette, taken from awkward angles like from behind a wall or slightly blurred from the times she turned around a little faster than he had anticipated.

The initial photos were imperfect, but Yunho pinned them all up on his wall anyway. Because even with blurry pictures and shaky angles, her beauty shone. It was a pity, such a horrible pity, he thought, because something that beautiful deserves to have every bit its perfection imprinted on something as eternal as films and photographs.

One day, she catches him taking a photo of her, and blushes. Apricot pink dusted her cheekbones, and he couldn’t help but snap another. It led to awkward mumbling and shy giggling, and to their first date, which led to many more after that. He brought his camera everywhere they go, because how could he miss a single opportunity of taking the perfect shot of the most beautiful person he has ever seen?

Over three months, he accumulated more pictures than the five months prior to that. And this time round, the pictures do her justice.

Yunho pins up the pictures he produced from their latest date and takes a step back.

She’s so fucking perfect, and he wants her so much.

* * *

 Yunho supposes this is the price he has to pay. For someone like him to crave someone as beautiful as her, it couldn’t possibly have come at nothing.

His gaze travels from the low ceiling of the dusty room to the dirty floor to the cobwebs stretching across the corner.

His fingers tighten around the little rectangular box he had intended to give her just a mere few hours ago, a little something that contained all his hopes and dreams and wishes. But before he could even present his heart, she stepped on it, crushed it to dust.

Yet he still followed her.

Yunho slumps onto the floor, draws up his knees and wraps his arms tight around them. He wants to cry.

* * *

 Yunho comes down the next morning, right after her husband leaves for work.

They spend the afternoon indulging in mindless fucking, Yunho desperate to rid his mind of the image of a faceless man laying claim on the woman he loves.

_You think an ugly bastard like you deserves anything?_

She asks him to stop when the sun just starts to set. She shoves a few pieces of old bread and a jug of stale water into his hands and pushes him up the stairs.

“One more kiss? Please, my love,” Yunho pleads. Just a little something from her can perhaps cut the strings knotted so tightly around his heart, can perhaps drown out the voice from so long ago.

_You don’t deserve shit, you ugly little bastard._

“No! Stop it,” She whispers, harsh and impatient. She doesn’t understand why he’s being uncooperative now, of all times. “My husband is almost through the front door!”

He trips and falls on the steps from all the rough hustling up the attic, smashing the jug and the plate of bread overturns onto the filthy floor. Behind him, she shoves his foot out of the way and slams the attic door shut. Almost immediately, he hears the voice of a man, deep and somewhat lyrical, calling her name.

“I’m coming!” She replies, her voice sweet like a nightingale.

Yunho remains on the floor, his chest tight and breath shallow. He wraps his arms around his knees and curls up, his body belatedly trying to protect him from the harm that has already been done. He tucks his head into his chest, his cheek dragging across the tiny glass smithereens.

It hurts.

* * *

 Photography was a family business. His family owned a little shop back in his hometown, a quaint and sparsely populated area located up north.

It was opened by his great-grandfather, who passed it down to his grandfather, who passed it down to his father, who decided that Yunho wasn’t worthy enough to carry on its good reputation and shut it down.

Yes, his father was a little strict, but Yunho always worshipped him and always respected him more than anyone else in the world. How can he not, for he learnt everything from him. Ever since he lost his mother to that tragic car accident, his father was all he had.

In his heart, his father was second to none. He was nothing but kind, patient, and loving.

* * *

" _He looks nothing like me, you absolute slut,” The man screams at the woman at kneeling at his foot. Her face is blocked from view, but her entire body is quivering from fear, her head shaking, fiercely denying the accusation._

_“He’s… he’s yours, I swear, please,”_

_He kicks at her face and she goes sprawling on the floor. It takes her a moment to recover, her sobbing getting louder, harder to stifle, before she’s back at his feet again, her head bowed to the ground._

_“You’re telling me,” He whispers, every word laced with venom. “That boy is mine, when he looks like that, and I look like this? Fucking bullshit.”_

_“Please, dear, I,” She cries, desperate. “Didn’t you used to say how beautiful I was? He just takes after me, for most parts. Can’t you see he has your eyes-“_

_The man backhands her across the face and she goes sprawling once more. But this, she stays there, still. He walks around her and stops at where her head lays. He raises his foot, encased in a large, hard rubber boot, and positions it above her skull._

_“Liar.”_

_And he stomps._

* * *

_“That slut said that you were mine,” The man hissed. A little boy stays cowered at his feet, afraid to look up. His mind is blank, save for the image of his mother lying in a puddle of her own blood and the reverberation of her ear-splitting screams that he still hears echoing in the room._

_He wants to yell, to run up to the bloody mess that was the only person who truly loved him and embrace it and pray this was all just a dream._

_He wants to kill his father, and then himself._

_But he doesn’t._

_Because upbringing and conditioning is a dangerous thing, it overrides all senses and moves him like how a puppet master controls his marionette, it ties up his limbs and leaves him to the mercy of the wolves. So he sits, eyes empty and jaw hanging, not daring to look up at the face of the man, not daring to refute his statement. He stays, entirely immobile._

_Totally docile._

_The man squats down to meet him at eye-level, but the room is so dark he can barely make out the features of the man._

_“But how can you be?” He whispers, his voice tinged with sadness and disappointment. And immediately, the boy is overwhelmed with guilt. “You’re too perfect.”_

* * *

A sharp pain shoots up his left cheek and Yunho flinches awake, groaning in pain.

“Fuck,” He curses as his fingers come away with blood from his face. He turns around and lifts the attic door just slightly to check if the coast is clear, before pulling it open completely and lowering the ladder down. He creeps down the hallway, his senses heightening exponentially as he passes by the master bedroom, as he continues his way down the corridor to the toilet at the end. He closes the door carefully behind him and locks it, not even bothering to turn the lights on lest it attracts attention and stands in the dark little room lit by the soft glow of the moon.

He faces the mirror. The cheek that was resting on the floor is painted with streaks of red, the blood running down the long length of his neck and staining the collar of his shirt.

He raises his hand and touches the other cheek.

His fingers trace the scar that runs from the corner of his eye and towards his ear, before moving on to the next one, that runs from below his eye to the side of his nose.

Yunho thinks he would have deemed himself kind of good-looking, if not for the ugly scars he got from falling off a bicycle when he was young. He remembers how his father fussed over him when he saw him, how he scolded him gently while carefully cleaning his wounds and placing the band-aid over them. It was the first time his father had ever expressed concern over him so openly and tenderly, and it was the first time he had felt warmth since the passing of his mother.

It was a sweet memory, one that warms his heart and gives him strength.

“That’s probably why,” He breathes, as his chest constricts painfully, and the tears just will not stop.

“Because I was so loved.”

* * *

A week into his stay, her husband leaves for a business trip. Yunho is ecstatic. At least for 2 whole days, he can make himself believe that it was just him and the love of his life.

The moment her husband is out of the door, he climbs down from the attic and hoists her up in his arms, bridal style, and carries her to her bedroom.

They have never made love in her bedroom before, because she said that her husband would most definitely notice if the sheets were changed in the middle of the week. Her husband is particular and meticulous, she had told him, especially when it comes to the bedroom.

Now that he is gone for the rest of the week, the two of them can finally use the bedroom for the first time. Yunho sees it as sort of christening of the house. Call him a romantic, but the bedroom holds so much meaning to him, and he was crushed when he thought that the bedroom was off-limits to them till indefinitely. Making love is something that can only be done properly in a bedroom and on a bed, Yunho thinks, because it is the most private quarter of a house, a place where people’s guards are relaxed and a home to return to when people feel tired.

He throws her onto the bed and they make a quick work of ridding their clothes. He feels so aroused, so excited, and he almost gives in to her pleas for _faster_ and _harder_ , but he controls himself and takes his time, makes her feel the thick girth of his cock stretching her wide as he teases her nipples with his teeth and fingers her ass. He wants this to last, and he wants her to be able to feel him and think of him whenever she has sex with her husband in this room.

Of course, like the gentleman he is, he lets her come first, and second, and third, until she tells him to come so that they can go to sleep because she was tired. His gaze falls automatically, sensing the frustration in her voice.

“Yes, dear.”

He digs his thumbs into her hips and grips them hard, and fucks.

He throws his head back, all the dirty images from before flashing through his mind, as he listens to the _ah ah ah_ falling from her lips as he snaps his hips fast and desperate. His lids fall open and he catches a glimpse of the wedding picture sitting above the head of the bed. There she was, like an angel in white, and next to her-

_Oh, fuck._

He comes.


	2. Chapter 2

_The boy is a wee little thing, just over four years and desperate for attention. He knows he has all of his mother’s, that isn’t a concern, but he has been hardly able to see his father at all. He always leaves early, his camera either slung over his shoulder or tucked into his backpack. When he comes back, it is always well after his bedtime. When he toddles to the toilet in the middle of the night to pee, more often than not, he’ll see light spilling from the crack beneath the door of the workroom. So one evening, while his mother is busy preparing dinner because it is one of those rare nights that his father is eating home, he stands on his tippy toes and holds on to the coat stand to steady himself, his other hand to digging into his father’s coat pocket. It took a while, everything of him is a little short, but he successfully extracts the keys._

_The boy stands at the entrance of the room, the one that hogs all his father’s time and attention. Light from the hallway spills into the room and all the boy can see is the glitter of countless thin metal chains strung from wall to wall in neat rows. Along the length of each chain hangs tens of photographs, each neatly clipped the in middle and evenly spaced. And there, in the middle of the room, at the centre of the web, is a chair._

_Suddenly, a shadow crosses and blocks the light from the hallway, large and scary like the monsters in the bedtime stories his mother read him. He feels the claws of the monster dig into his soft scalp and tug. The boy is dragged away, screaming._

* * *

 

_His mother had fallen asleep hours ago. The boy lays wide awake in her arms, barely aware of the gentle breaths that she is blowing out at the back of his head because her nose is too clogged with blood to breathe._

_His winces again when he tries to swallow his saliva, his throat unbelievably sore._

_As the light of dawn filters in, he spots a spiderweb glittering in dew at the corner of the window frame. His gaze traces the path of every thread, from outside to inside, nine neat circles held together by radial threads, counting the number of struggling insects trapped along the way._

_In the centre is the spider, the master of the web. It stays still, deliberating. Then it moves, its focus all on the most beautiful butterfly on the third circle from the centre. As if sensing danger, it flutters its wings hard, desperate to get away. But once it had entered the web, it can’t leave. It’s like quicksand, all you can do is wait for the sweet embrace of death to end everything. The spider holds and cripples it, its wings seizing, and spins it into a delicate cocoon, something of silk and something like tucking it into bed for eternity._

_The boy thinks about how dark it must be in the cocoon, how afraid the little butterfly must be._

_He thinks about that photo of his mother and him, smiling gleefully at the camera because it was his birthday and his mother had baked a huge cake in the shape of his favourite power ranger, suspended on a long silver chain along the wall and the large monster prowling in the middle of the room. Instead of having eight legs, his monster only had two legs and two hands, but it seemed so much more terrifying. The monster stalks forth and its fingers graze the side of the photo._

_Yunho’s hands reflexively moves up and touches his neck as he feels his lungs freeze over. He can still feel those hideously strong fingers pressing on his airpipe._

_“Can you,” The boy murmurs, as the spider engulfs its prey and he imagines the spirit of the butterfly taking flight, through the glass of the window and to the garden outside. “Take me away too?”_

* * *

 

Yunho knows that it’s bad, that it’s wrong, he should not be wanting someone else but he does, oh he does so much.

 _Changmin_.

The name rolls off his tongue like honey, it tastes sweet and it feels like the easiest thing in the world, as if he has said it time and again before in a life he doesn’t remember. He got his name out of her when she was drunk on sex, inhibitions stripped to nothing, when he was fucking her slow and steady, pinning her wrists down to stop her from touching herself. She would have done anything for him to allow her to climax.

The night before her husband came home, Yunho waited till she fell asleep before taking his camera off the nightstand and snapping a photo of the wedding portrait at the head of the bed. It was the first time that Yunho did not request to take a photo of her in bed. She either didn’t care or didn’t realise, she didn’t ask either way.

He stares at the picture on the wall. Yunho felt downright horrendous, having to tear every picture of her off the wall. But he had to put up his picture, it would have been wrong not to, for pictures of her just paled so much in comparison to his that they only became an eyesore.

His fingers graze at the side of his face, unconsciously tracing the scars marking it, as his gaze runs from the wide honey browns framed in long lashes down to the fullest and sexiest lips he has seen on a man, his eyes lingering on the sharp cheekbones and the expanse of perfectly unblemished skin.

He is almost elated because he truly thinks that Changmin is the one, the one he wants to marry and the one he wants to spend the rest of eternity with.

But the voice in his head, the voice of a man that keeps repeating “that’s the one”, it makes his heart pound violently against his ribs and he almost thinks he hears a distant scream of a woman asking him to save her.

* * *

 

She keeps asking for sex.

Or rather, demanding.

It sparks a feeling within him, something foreign or forgotten, a feeling like nails on a chalkboard.

He realises that he wants to say no.

He climbs on top of her and unzips his pants.

* * *

 

_“Father,” The boy asks, his voice small but clear. His head is bowed and hands clasped in front of him. His father has taught him to be polite when asking troubling others. “May I know how you and mummy met?”_

_The man doesn’t move his eyes away from the tiny little window on his camera, his thumb resting still on a button, occasionally pressing down on it as he slowly browses the pictures that he took that day._

_The boy stays unmoving as well and counts in his head, one click, two click, three clicks, and he reaches ten, a good and round number. His father puts down the camera and levels the boy a look. The boy makes sure to fix his gaze on the floor._

_“You want to know how your mother and I met.”_

_It was a statement, not a question. The boy hesitated before deciding to stay silent, but bowing his head impossibly lower._

_The man places his palms on his knees and pushes himself up. He stalks round the boy, letting his hand fall on his head. The boy flinches._

_“Thirteen years ago,” He starts. His tone of voice is something the boy is unfamiliar with. It wasn’t harsh or demanding or at the slightest bit threatening. It was soft, airy, and faraway, like he was reminiscing a beautiful memory. The boy feels sick._

_“A beautiful woman walked in with her fiancé walked into our shop. They wanted to take their wedding photos here. And my father, bless him, he’s a wise and far-sighted man. He took one look at the woman and he knew, he knew that she was perfect for me.”_

_The man stays silent for a while, the only audible sounds in the room were the deep, calm breaths of an older man and the shallow, suppressed ones of a young boy._

_“Do you know how my father knew?”_

_“No, father. I don’t know.”_

_The man turns the boy around, the pads of his fingers pressing into his skull._

_“Look at me, boy. What do you see?”_

_The boy feels his heart leaping out of his chest, he doesn’t know what to answer, doesn’t dare to look at the man straight on because, just because. But the man seems infuriated by his silence, and the boy suddenly feels nails dig hard into his scalp, but he bites his lips and clenches his fists, not allowing a single sound to escape. He tastes metal._

_“I asked you a question, you ugly imbecile!”_

_The boy shakes like a leaf, tears gathering in his eyes against his will. He doesn’t want to get hurt, but he doesn’t know what the man wanted to hear. He throws caution to the wind._

_“Scars.”_

_To his surprise, the man lets go. A satisfied smile spreads over his face, slow and eerie._

_“Yes, boy. And what did your mother have?”_

_The boy feels a lump in his throat at the mention of his mother, but he pushes on, “No scars?”_

_“She had the most perfect skin I had ever seen on a human being, boy. You see, this is what my father taught me. Couples need to make up for each other’s flaws, only in that way can they balance each other out, and form the perfect picture. Do you understand?”_

_“… Yes, father.”_

_“And do you understand,” The man raises his hand to run a finger along the healing scars on the boy’s face, aligns the edge of his nail along the mid-length of the scar where a little red line peaks through mending skin, and digs. “That you’re just like me, Yunho?”_

* * *

 

Changmin considers himself a normal guy. His upbringing was nothing special, his father was a salary man and his mother a housewife. Like majority of the middle-class families in the country, they live in the suburbs, a house with a red-tiled roof and off-white walls, just like their neighbours their neighbour’s neighbours. He had two sisters, both younger, and they were like every other stereotypical girly girl too, obsessed with pink and barbie dolls and just far too annoying.

He has always been quiet and reserved, but he went to the high school all the other children were going to and made a sizable group of friends with the boys staying around him. He remembered having fun with them, getting into trouble as teenagers do but still getting a laugh out of it.

As boys are boys and as pubescent boys are the most curious and adventurous, he did something he never thought he would do, and that changed everything. Curiosity killed the cat, that’s how the saying goes, but he still remembers his mother at the door of his room, her eyelids pulled wide and knuckles white from gripping the door knob, the haunted look in her eyes was as if she had just seen the devil herself.

He remembers her slamming the door shut and leaving him bewildered as he stayed sitting on the floor staring at his fingers, feeling the thick sticky mess try to glue his fingers together and the little rivulets that spattered on his face slowly bleed down.

That evening, his parents did not ask him to come down for dinner, and so he didn’t go. He just sat in his room, fingers absentmindedly digging into the flesh and organs, feeling the warm liquid coating his fingers and staining the floor, wondering why his parents were angry at him and why they wouldn’t reprimand and correct him like they usually would.

It was difficult after that. The haunted look never left his mother’s eyes and every word that came out of his father’s mouth was hesitant and almost fearful. His sisters also went to stay in boarding school, even though their school was only a half an hour drive away. He had asked repeatedly to see his sisters on the weekends, he hated to admit but he had missed being half-forced to drink tea with their dolls and to learn to braid their hair. He had put on the pout and puppy eyes he knew his mother was weak towards and ran forth to grab her hands, his lips parting to ask her to bring his sisters back. But before he managed to get a word out, his mother pushed him away and retracted her arm as if she was scalded. The word “no” was not the one that hurt him, it was the “you monster” that followed and the amount of venom and hatred in her usually sweet voice that made him realise that nothing would ever be the same again.

The negligence of his mother was almost made up with the pretence of care and understanding from his father and the doctors he brought him to. At first, he opened up easily, just as any other child, he wanted attention and he wanted care, and for two hours every week, his father and a white-coated mister or missus would sit him down in the playroom of their house and listen to him talk and ramble on about his thoughts and emotions with nothing short of rapt attention.

This was enough, almost enough, until he realised that the concern was feigned. They weren’t listening to him because they wanted to know about him, they just wanted to fix him, because he had traits that society deemed undesirable and because his mother, his father, and the rest of the world did not want a Shim Changmin, at least not one like him. This realisation had hit him hard, for he had never thought of himself as broken, and it hurt him so much that it felt like his heart was being stomped on and wrung dry. He couldn’t breathe.

The silence during the doctor visits punctured by the occasional scribbling of pen on paper started to feel like ants crawling over his skin and akin to a noose tightening around his throat. He was being studied, his every word and action dissected and examined, so that they could figure him out completely, so that they could find what exactly was broken and why he, a human being, wasn’t living up to their standards of what a human being should be.

So he closed up, shut himself tight from the world and refused to let anything slip. In school, he was more normal than ever. He learnt how to smile in a way that made everyone think you were happy and speak and act in ways that people perceived as sensible and logical, if not a little charming. The silences during the doctor visits became even more long-drawn and unbearable, feelings of frustration and impatience stifling the air but at the very least he no longer felt like a lab rat.

When he turned eighteen, he moved out, to a great university up north of the country. Even though he couldn’t get the attention of his family, he captured the attention of the best schools and companies in the country because he was smart, smarter than anyone around him. He had left on a weekend on purpose, but his parents didn’t send him off. All was done was his breakfast and lunch packed in a box, four slices of plain bread with a small packet of butter, and a note saying that they had left to visit his sisters and that they hope he has a safe trip.

He left without taking the food, leaving the note crumpled in the trash.

* * *

 

The next time he had any contact with his family, aside from the $500 that popped up in his bank account every month, was on Christmas Eve, two years after. He was taking some headshots with his friend at a little photography shop near the university in order to fill in their applications for internships when his friend asked, yet again, why he had always chosen to stay at the hostel for every holiday instead of going home.

“I guess it won’t hurt to go back once in a while,” He muttered as he packed his things for the weekend.

Before he had even reached the driveway of his house, he had already sensed that something was wrong.

The neighbour, a middle-aged lady too nosy for her own good, appeared at her window and did a double-take at him. A furrowing of eyebrows and a stare too long, and she disappeared back inside. Changmin counted five steps before he spied from his peripheral vision. Sure enough, she had reappeared at the window with her husband in tow. This time, she pointed at him.

“Nosy fucker,” He gritted out, his breath taking shape in the frigid winter air.

When he reached the front gate of his house, his feet stopped before he registered it. He looked up at the gaudy, bright Christmas decorations adorning the building. Almost the entire house was engulfed in ridiculously bright Christmas lights and there was even a giant Santa Claus cut-out standing in the front porch. Just looking at his house hurts his eyes, and it hurts his heart, because in all the years he had been growing up in the family, never once was the house decorated in more than what was considered a basic and simplistic fashion.

His eyes fell on the little welcome sign at the gate, his numb fingers running across the words.

“Welcome to the Park’s!” it read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i sincerely hope this isn't too... bizarre. well, even if it is it's already too late HAHA. anyway feedback will be appreciated :) thanks for reading this weird thing. i also hope yall managed to catch some of them ~hints~, if they can be considered subtle enough to be hints hahahaha
> 
> Edit: so apparently i think the hints weren't very obvious but really there are hints!! about erm, things!! haha it's ok things will be revealed ;D


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the super late update, i have no excuses, i just suck OTL. also I decided to break the last chapter into 2 cos.... I just want to prolong the pain :D jk it's cos i told people i would update by this week but i couldn't finish it ksjdnkdsjnfsdf
> 
> and i will definitely update the last chapter by this week so pls bear with my terribly late ass D: thank you ^^;;

Yunho is like an open book. His feelings, thoughts, and desires laid out plain for anyone who cares to look. So initially, he was deathly worried that she would pick up his change of heart and chase him away, far away from Changmin. Hence, he tries even harder to be the perfect boyfriend. He tries to help with everything around the house, he gives massages and runs the bath for her even when all she has done all day is to sit while ordering him around. He complies with all her requests, her demands, and offers more, overcompensating in order to paint the façade of the man he used to be, a man who loved her.

But she doesn’t ask why he stopped saying “I love you”s, or why he doesn’t look at her during sex anymore. She doesn’t question why he barely makes an effort to take photos of her anymore, to treasure their memories, and how he’s now behaving more like a estranged houseguest cum helper, overly distant and polite, rather than a lover, a husband.

That is when he realises that she doesn’t care, and that she probably never did.

Yunho recalls how his “I love you”s were always met with silence or awkward smiles, how flippant she was when he tried to have proper conversations with her, how she cajoles and flirts with him for sex but brushes him off once she’s satisfied. He thinks of how much he had given and how much she had, how she toyed with him like a marionette on strings. He feels sick and tired from being passed from one owner to another, always desperately hoping that the next would be the one to untangle the knots, allowing him to fight the monsters that still lurk in the shadows, only to be disappointed again as he feels the strings tangle into more incomprehensible knots, tightening around his neck and squeezing his heart till he can’t breathe.

He runs up to the attic and looks at the little collage of pictures that he had managed to make with pictures stolen from dusty photo albums when she was not looking. He falls to his knees and rests his head against the pictures. He squeezes his eyes shut and prays.

_Please love me, please._

* * *

 

_Changmin spotted him the very moment he entered the club. He was wearing a cap pulled down to hide his face, but Changmin recognises that straight cut of his nose and the slim V of his jawline. Besides, he stood at least a good half a head above the majority of the crowd, it wasn’t exactly hard to notice._

_Changmin presses the rim of the glass to his lips and lets his eyes follow the man weaving through the crowd. He wonders if the man comes to the club often, dressed in full black and material that hugs onto even the most subtle curves of his body. He imagines that would be the most practical if he was trying to go unnoticed, especially if that someone lives under the same roof as him._

_The face of the old man flashes in his mind again. He recalls deep scar that ran from his ear to his jaw, his heavily pockmarked face, and the look in his eyes the moment he saw Changmin step into the shop._

_Hunger, that’s what he saw. He had the eyes of a predator eyeing its prey, and they held the confidence of seasoned hunter, one that had a few too many successful kills that had fed his ego to the point of bursting._

_Changmin had scoffed back then. He knows that everyone always assumes that he’s some innocent, naïve lamb from his appearance. But he can’t be further from that. He was no longer that little boy who craved affirmation and attention from people, his self-worth defined by proud smiles and praises from his parents. No, Changmin is intimately aware of his insidious nature, his journey to self-awareness driven by the fear and hatred of his parents. So, Changmin had thought, let him attack if he dared, and he’ll make sure the old man is paid back tenfold._

_Changmin hops off his seat at the bar and makes his way through the throng of sweaty bodies, his eyes fixed on the back of one man._

_Yunho startles when he feels arms wrap around his stomach, pressing his back into the embrace of the warm, solid body of the man behind him._

_Yunho relaxes when he recognises the scent of his lover._

_Yunho met Changmin back in the photography studio about a month ago and the electricity was instant. Out of habit, he always kept his gaze fixed on the ground when talking to customers, only daring to raise his head when he has to look through the camera lenses. But that day, the moment Changmin stepped into the studio, the hairs at the back of his neck prickled._

_The scent of power and control._

_It simultaneously makes Yunho want to throw up, to run away, but also to submit and to be owned. He feels it, the force of habit, once again crippling his will and leaving him broken and empty inside, like a lifeless doll for men with claws and long, hideous fingers to play with and manipulate._

_Yunho knew he should keep his gaze to the floor and ignore the almost painfully focused gaze of the man staring at the lens of his camera._

_“That’s the one,” His father had told him, just as his father had told him._

_Yunho didn’t say no when Changmin asked for his number._

* * *

 

“Oh, oppa,” She pants above him, her eyes shut tight and lips parted.

He shuts his eyes tight and imagines tanner skin, higher cheekbones painted in soft pink and wider, sexier lips holding his name as a prayer instead of an ambiguous “oppa”.

_Show me how badly you want to be fucked, Yunho._

Yunho hears it in his head, the voice of another man, his tone deep and gravelly. He lets his lips part, fucking harder into the body above him as the voice in his head continues its litany of dirty praises, every word sparking electricity across his skin like fingernails leaving red, bloody trails behind. He bites his lips and licks at the wound, the blood on his tongue sending him into even more of a frenzy, heightening his senses as the voice in his head gets louder and rougher.

* * *

 

_“Fuck you’re so sexy like that.”_

_Yunho whimpers, his palms and chest pressed up against the door of the toilet and his ass sticking out nice and curvy as Changmin grabs his hips and thrusts in hard and relentless. Yunho bites his lips till they draw blood because he knows how much it turns Changmin on to see him debauched, to lick the blood off his lips. When he turns around to meet his lover’s gaze, he knows how pretty and sexy he looks, Changmin had told him a thousand times that he looked the prettiest completely wrecked under him._

_“God, you’re such a lovely little slut, aren’t you?”_

_Yunho feels amazing. He loves having sex with Changmin, loves being with Changmin, because no one has ever made him feel so pretty, so loved, so confident. Changmin allows him to look at him in his eyes, encourages it, compliments him on how pretty and innocent his eyes look. How Changmin doesn’t see the terrors that those eyes have witnessed, Yunho doesn’t know and doesn’t question, he just basks in the sweet words of his lover, the loveliest escape from the horrible life under his father’s roof._

_Yunho can’t help but feel sorry for mistaking Changmin for the monster that is his father, because they can’t be any more different. Changmin is everything to him, his salvation, his saviour, and Yunho would give anything and everything to Changmin, only in exchange for his undivided love and attention._

_When Changmin releases his grip on Yunho’s cock, Yunho comes immediately, a cry escaping his lips when his desperate wish for release was granted. Changmin turns Yunho onto his back and leans in, sucking on the blood on his lip, his hands reaching around him to grope at his lover’s ass._

_“You’re so good, Yunho, such a good boy.”_

_Yunho keens in pleasure at the compliment and wraps his fingers around Changmin’s cock. He pumps it fast just like how he knows he likes it, hooking his free arm around the back of Changmin’s neck and pulling his face down next to his, whispering “I love you”s as his lover paints his belly with white streaks of spunk._

* * *

 

It happened so fast.

He was so close, his hands teasing his nipples as he felt her come on his cock, the walls of her pussy squeezing him tight.

And in a matter of moments, he was shoved off the couch, all the heat and warmth from arousal driven away by the cool tiles. He could barely register the panicked “that asshole is coming” and “why is he back so early” before he was wrestled into the little room beneath the stairs, his head banging hard against the low entryway sending him collapsing on the ground before the door bangs shut behind him.

He sees spots of white light dotting his vision in the completely dark room, his arms cradling his head. He feels something scurry past him, imagines a shadow flicker past his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to bother when his head feels so heavy and when his lungs can’t seem to get enough air.

He hears a bang from the other side of the door of the little room and frantic movements, feet shuffling and clothes shedding and desperate little moans.

_“Fuck.”_

Yunho’s mind suddenly sharpens and he’s up in a heartbeat.

_“Look at how desperate you are. Take more, come on, I know you can.”_

He hears his lover of the past four months choking and crying and moaning all over but what really tears him apart is the knowledge that those words aren’t meant for him. His breathing shallows as his hands automatically moves to cover his chest, his heart, trying to claw his heart out to make it hurt less. The sounds from the other side of the door floods his head and drowns out everything else, throwing his mind into chaos as his heart shatters like glass, smithereens all over the floor and breaking his skin, leaving him bleeding and exhausted. He curls up on the floor and tries pressing his palms to his ears to shut it out but the voice in his head gets louder instead, and his body wrecks back and forth from sobbing, his lips falling open in a silent plea for everything to just, stop.

The door knob turns, and the door creaks open just a little, just enough for Yunho to see Changmin climaxing, shooting his load all over her face and breasts. He then kneels on the floor and brings her head to his shoulder, his fingers softly combing through her hair.

Yunho stares at those fingers in her hair until corners of his vision crumbles away into ashes like a picture set on fire and all that remains is red.

He’s going to paint everything red.

“God, I love you so much.”

His eyes snap to the source of the voice, his body trembling from the adrenaline, and their eyes meet.

A decade worth of time stretches between them and collapses into nothing, breaks into dust as Yunho looks into his eyes and sees someone who understands him better than anyone else.

It makes him almost euphoric, and completely terrified.

_“Come on, baby. Don’t you want to be with me forever?”_

He sees a hint of a smile before the knob turns again and the door clicks shut, bathing him in complete darkness.

He has never felt so calm in his life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ksdjfnkjsdnf oKAY I FINALLY FINISHED THIS happy belated birthday to lana once again hahaha. and thank you ALL for following through this extremely, disturbing fic :)

_“Changmin-ah, we really shouldn’t be here.”_

_Changmin pulls over and turns to look at Yunho with his head tilted and eyes wide like an innocent lamb._

_“Hyung, didn’t you say you love me?”_

_But Yunho thinks he sees the eyes of a wolf set on a prey._

_For a moment, he sees the eyes of his father._

_“Of course, Changmin-ah. But this-“_

_“Let’s just get off the car first, okay?”_

_He doesn’t wait for a reply and exits the car, walks round to the boot of the car and pulls out two large containers of gasoline. He loops his fingers around the handle of one and strolls to the back of the house. Before he disappears behind the building, he turns around and looks at Yunho. The boy was still in the car, his face white with fear._

_Their eyes locked. Changmin lifts the container and uncaps it._

_He reappears from the other side of the building with the container empty. By then, Yunho had exited the car, though his body is still half-hidden behind the door of the car, his knuckles white as he grips the top edge of the door._

_“That’s not right, Changmin-ah,” Yunho says, rubbing his knuckles against his chin._

_Changmin bets Yunho thinks that what he feels is terror and worry, but he knows Yunho, saw it in him since the very first time he raised his eyes to meet his at the studio._

_Yunho is excited. He can’t wait to take revenge on his father for all the pain and suffering that he had given him, to burn the house down and listen to his screams of agony as he imagines the fiery flames searing his flesh and reducing that garbage to dust. Changmin knows Yunho wants all of that, for he recognised the look in his eyes, despite his well-practiced façade of obedience and subservience._

_He recognised it because that was how he looked like when he looked into the mirror. They say that the eyes are the windows to one’s soul and it isn’t wrong, because no matter how bright his smile is, he can’t seem to erase the sinister thoughts that haunted him when he found out about his family abandoning him. He had tried to track down his family, he had asked his neighbours and went to the police, but to no avail. He dreamt of burning down their house too, because he keeps imagining his family laughing, enjoying, and just_ being _, without him, and it infuriates him and all he can see is red. For millions of times he had put on a façade of complete attentiveness, listening to his friends talk about their mundane lives and trivial gossips, when all he can hear in his brain are the screams of his family. He translates them into apologies, unholy satisfaction swelling up in his chest as he imagines him in their shoes. He dreams of their pain, their suffering, their agony, and their regret, the fantasies are like liquid drugs flowing through his veins, they make him high and makes him delirious, and all he can do is to try to relive the fantasies over and over in his mind._

_Changmin stalks towards him, like a spider encircling its prey on the web._

_“The other container is for the front,” Changmin comments seemingly nonchalantly, but the quiver in his voice gives it away. He reaches for Yunho’s hand and holds it, a lighter pressing against his palm._

_Yunho stills, like a butterfly stuck on a web, his mind in chaos as it screams at him to flutter his wings and fight and run and escape, but he just stands there, ensnared. He envisions the building engulfed in brilliant amber flames, crumbling like a cookie and all he thinks of is how beautiful it would look, how mesmerising destruction could be, how sweet death could taste._

_Changmin moves to wrap his arms around Yunho’s waist, pulling him into his embrace and out from behind the car door. He presses a kiss to his cheek and mouths his ear._

_“Come on, baby,” The devil on his shoulder whispers, his voice so soft and tempting that it drips down like honey, sticky and thick as it coats his tongue and the insides of his throat. It tastes sickly sweet and makes his chest feel tight and uncomfortable._

_“You want to, don’t you?”_

______

Changmin has one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his lap. He purses his lips and taps the wheel.

He had been replaying the events from the previous night over and over in his mind and the only viable conclusion he can come up with is that Yunho has indeed forgotten him. He guesses that he should have expected it, considering how Yunho never spoke about the abuse that he had suffered under his father, only going on and on about how loving and great his father was when Changmin tried to broach the topic all those years ago. He wonders if he blocked out the memory because of guilt or because he simply refuses to admit that he enjoyed it, watching his abuser burn and crumble like the insect that he is.

The memory from last night plays again, when their eyes met and all he registered was the spark of lust and the intense envy and the burning anger after hearing him fucked her mouth and his wife playing her part perfectly, screaming in pleasure.

God, it was so fucking sexy, and he missed it so much.

After the incident, Yunho disappeared, and Changmin would be lying if he said he didn’t care, but he didn’t bother to look to hard for him either. He was almost sure he could find another one like him, like Yunho, like himself, and it frankly didn’t matter who he or she was. But he was wrong, he realised shortly after, he was just spoiled by Yunho’s unwavering adoration and complete submission to him that he forgot about the reality of who he was.

He was an outcast and he always will be one for he isn’t just the minority, but a monster to society. Monsters and freaks like him are like legends, they belong on paper and television but not in real life, his thoughts and his actions are only to be studied and dissected like a scientific specimen, but never to be assimilated. He will never truly be understood, It makes him simultaneously angry and terrified, but what could he do if he is alone?

So he came to terms with the fact that he would never be able to walk around without a mask again and forced himself to dress up like the human he isn’t, at least by society’s terms. After graduation he got an office job and married the girl who wouldn’t leave him alone throughout the final year of his studies, and he became the man society would have wished to see, the man his parents would have wanted to have.

His house comes into sight and he turns into the driveway, pulling over before taking a deep breath, looking at the front door.

His mind is filled with Yunho, and how that lovely pet never lets him down. Always so obedient, always so compliant.

He lowers his head and closes his eyes, biting his lips as he tries to temp down his giggling, his shoulders trembling uncontrollably.

He can’t wait to see what’s waiting inside, he’s so fucking excited.

__

When Changmin steps through the door, only silence greets him.

For the first time in just over a decade, no one has come out to greet him, to get him something to drink, to ask him how his day is. Changmin thinks back to the fake smiles and forced formalities poorly masking decade-old grudges caused by his nonchalance and the guilt of infidelity, and he’s glad he won’t find himself missing any of that.

He shrugs off his coat and hangs it up, unbuttoning his shirt as he heads to the washing machine. He’s almost shaking, his fingers trembling as he tries to take off his shirt. But he moves slowly, deliberately, doing everything to keep his nerves and movements under control. He imagines himself being watched, like every action, from the moment he had stepped into the house, was a show, a performance. Every movement he makes has to be perfect, to fall within the expectation of Yunho, because this is his stage and his apology to him, for running away all those years ago, and Changmin will hate to do anything that will screw up Yunho’s ultimate display of sacrifice and submission.

He doesn't want to let Yunho down, he realises.

He climbs up the stairs step by step, listening to the wooden flooring creak under the weight of his foot before proceeding to the next step, hearing the sound of his footsteps resonate through the quiet house. After he reaches the top of the stairs, he continues down the hall, stopping briefly as he passes the bedroom as he hears a quiet mewl from behind the door. He bites down a smirk and clenches his fists, and continues down the hallway.

He finally stops beneath the opening to the attic. Dark, red liquid drips from the edge of the attic door and down to the floor next to his feet, seeping through the wooden floorboards and staining it dark brown. Ah, he remembers, his heart filling with warmth despite noting the mess he’ll have to clean later, Yunho used to be kind of a klutz in the most endearing way, it seems like he hasn’t changed.

Then Changmin smiles, Yunho really hasn’t changed at all.

He thinks that it is time to reward him.

He walks back to the bedroom, the chains holding back his enthusiasm crumbling as he grips the door knob with more force than necessary and flings the door open, Yunho flinching as the door bangs against the wall.

There is his lovely little pet, and what a pretty sight he is, on his knees on the bed, his shoulders bunched up as his hands are cuffed behind his back, his nipples tightened into sweet little nubs and his abs tightened as his skin is exposed to the cold air.

Changmin moves forward and runs his fingers along the edge of the cloth that covers his eyes, seeing the way his lips fall open at the contact.

“Changmin-ah.”

“Hyung,” Changmin smiles, really smiles, he cannot feel any prouder. He wants to give him everything, to kiss him till his lips are red and bleeding, to touch him everywhere and reduce him to a bumbling incoherent mess before fucking him hard as he screams his name and begs him for more. He wants to keep him next to him and ravish him and worship him every single day, for he is the only person in the world who understands him and accepts him for who he is.

The only person who is just like him.

“I’ll never allow you to leave me ever again.”

_And the boy stays still and allows the monsters with hideously long claws drag him into hell. Doesn’t bother fighting, doesn’t bother struggling, all of that was beaten out of him a long time ago._

_Because he saw, that the only way to escape the web after flying into one, was death._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do hope i managed to kind of, bring out how the characters think and how their thinking had been shaped through the nuances in the descriptions of how they perceive different situations and what not. i welcome qns if yall are interested what are the kinds of thought processes/psychology im trying to depict here, and because i think it may be a bit difficult to understand sorry otl. but YES i want to end off emphasising that this is NOT a love story by any means, just a horrible story with tragic characters with terrible intentions and a whole lot of unhealthy minds. 
> 
> once again thank you for sticking with me through this fic, i really appreciate all the feedback yall give me. meanwhile i will try to not add too many wips in this acc ksjfnkdsjnf iM TRYING TO FINISH MY OTHER FICS I SWEAR I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP ON THEM. yes that includes the merman fic OTL. thanks for your patience and understanding ;A;


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